Elevation with Steven Furtick - My Redeemer Lives

Episode Date: July 16, 2018

Author and speaker Lisa Harper teaches us how to keep it together when everything feels like it’s falling apart. To support this ministry and help us continue to reach people all around the world click here: http://ele.vc/TI55jRSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. We're incredibly blessed today to have one of the best Bible teachers in the country to share God's word with us. Lisa Harper is here. One of the most prominent teachers and preachers at conferences and women's events today. She's a gifted author, and I think you're going to really love how she makes the Bible just come alive when she teaches. And I also think you're going to be encouraged hearing God's goodness and faithfulness towards her and her family. She has

an amazing story. And in fact, she brought a video just to share a little bit about what God has done in her family's life. So we're going to watch that. Then she's going to be up here to preach, and so when this video is done and she takes the stage, let's give her this. the best elevation church, welcome, possible. Are you ready to hear from God today? All right, you guys can take a seat, take a look at the screens. In April 2012, I jumped off a proverbial cliff and into the greatest adventure and joy of my life. I began the process of adopting my little girl, Melissa Price Harper.

I love you. Her first mama Marie died as a result of undiagnosed days when Missy was just a baby. unwittingly infecting her with HIV, which was exacerbated by tuberculosis, severe malnutrition, and a host of other ailments. Doctors and Porter Prince didn't give Missy much of a chance, but then again they didn't know my baby girl has the heart of a warrior. Our adoption process took two long years, but I finally got to bring her home to Tennessee on April 14, 2014, just a few days before Easter, which seemed especially fitting. And her name was Missy, and she was oh, so sweet. And her mama came to Haiti and said, that's my baby. And brought her home to Tennessee.

Yeah. Every single day since has been better than the one before. By the grace of God and great medical care, Missy's health is now excellent. Her HIV is completely undetectable, and her lungs have no scars from the tuberculosis she suffered from as a toddler. She even has killer abs, which is really the only dead giveaway. She's not my biological child. We're surrounded by an incredible community of friends and family. Missy has more doting aunts and uncles than just about any kid I know.

Plus, we've had the joy of getting to go back to the village she's from in Haiti and share the love of Christ with her extended family members. Psalm 68 declares that God is a father to the fatherless, a husband to the husbandless, and he places the lonely in families. That's definitely our story, and I plan on praising him over it for the rest of my life. Yeah, baby. That's a lot of kisses. I did kiss you a lot, didn't I?

Yes, ma'am. Did it bug you? A little bit. I bugged you that I kissed you? Yes. No way, no way. I'm coming. Kiss monsters is coming.

We're coming after you. Hey, do you know why I kiss you? Why? Why do you think? Because you love me. How much you think I love you? More than the whole world. Yep, about that much.

Even wider, even wider. Just much? No way. That's much? No way. That's much? No way. No way.

More. Tickled to be here. I cannot even tell you how honored I am to be here. Please, please, please sit down. You're going to be mad at me in a minute anyway. I'm just undone. I feel like a donkey at the Kentucky Derby because I love Elevation Church. I watch y'all online all the time from Nashville. Deeply, deeply, deeply respect what God has done through Holly and Pastor Stephen.

And y'all, I feel like y'all just epitomize Christ admonition to be a city on a hill, to be a light to the world. So the fact that I get to be here just undoes me. I do want to bring two qualifications because my main prayer leading up to this was that I wouldn't unwittingly throw a monkey wrench into what God is doing through y'all and through your campuses. And so I need to go ahead and qualify two things. One is I'm old. I'm much, much older than Pastor Stephen or most of your pastoral staff. And I'm also going through what some would call the change, which is probably TMI, gentlemen.

but the reason I tell you that is because during the change, I've developed a spiritual gift called projectile perspiration. And I can pretty much aim where I'm going to sweat. And because it's 145 degrees today and I'm in a fluffy season, that has exacerbated my spiritual gift. And so y'all are going to get wet. All of you, we're going to call this SeaWorld in Charlotte. And I think we just vote that it's a baptism. It's just an extra baptism. So that's my first qualification.

The second qualification is we're going to talk this morning about the immutable, that is the unchanging hope of Christ. But the way we're going to get there is through a true story in scripture that some equate with sticking your hand in a blender. And so I need you to hang with me when I tell you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Job. So turn in the Old Testament to the true story of Jesus. Job, if you'll head to the Psalms and then just back up, you'll hit Job. Usually it's not a book we're super familiar with. Women, we never cross-stitch this one. Because it's a hard story. It's a tough

story. I so appreciate that Pastor Zach said that this had been a difficult week. Because I think all too often in Christian circles, we act like once we commit our lives to Christ, everything's perfect. And I'm like, that's not even biblically sound. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble. He is a good God. Life can be incredibly hard. Sometimes you lose your metabolism and your hair is chemically dependent, but that's just me. Y'all have different kind of griefs you've been through. And I think we do the world a disservice when as Christ followers, we pretend like we never struggle anymore. I think that's one of the reasons they think we're big fat hypocrites is because we aren't honest about the places where we need Jesus to carry us. I was at a women's event recently,

and I asked a woman how I could pray for her. And she said, oh, no, I don't need prayer. And I was like, you're about to. Because I'm going to punch you in the throat for being a liar. There are seasons in our life where it is appropriate for us to say, Lord, I'm not sure I can handle this. I'm not sure I can hike up this hill in front of me. Apart from you carrying me, I'm not going to make it through the next season of my life. Job says exactly that. Now, y'all probably know his story. He's a really good guy.

In the first chapter, it says that he is a righteous man. He's an upright man. Some translations say he's a perfect man. That doesn't mean he's sinless. That just means he's a good guy. It says that he's living a good, life. If you study all of his acquisitions, he lived in the patriarchal period or pre-patriarchal period. They aren't sure exactly when this story took place, but it was sometime between 1,500 and 1,000

years before the birth of Christ. So long time ago. And if you study his acquisitions based on that context, it proves that he had about 11,000 servants, if you include women and children. He had vast agricultural holdings, and most of his wealth was based in agriculture, which I love that, because I'm old, and this will just telegraph my age. I'm about to be 55, but I am not attracted to men in skinny jeans. I'm much more attracted to a guy in Wranglers, like with a John Deere, and that's, I mean, that's just me, but could be why I'm 54 and single, but anyway, that's kind of Job. He's this good guys living a good life. He's got like a fleet of John Dears. There's a fish sticker on all of his John Dears. He's wearing wranglers. The knees are worn out in his wranglers from praying because also in Chapter 1 it says it is his continual habit to pray for his family. He has seven sons, three daughters. And it says it is his continual habit. In Chapter 1, most translations say early every morning. But that's Hebrew. idiom that just means it was his continual habit. So he didn't necessarily set his iPhone for

5.30 every morning to get up and pray for his family, but it was his continual habit. So he's a good guy. He's doing good things with his life. He's living a good life. And one of my favorite commentators says Job was not filthy rich. He was clean rich because he used a lot of his wealth to help the poor and the underprivileged, the marginalized. So this is this kind of great, beginning of a story. And then it turns into a train wreck. Because right after we're taught all these things about this true guy, this is not metaphor, this is a historical tale, this really happened, right after we read those things, we find out Job loses everything through no fault of his own. As a matter of fact, I don't have time to go here. This is a rabbit trail. I hope it's redemptive.

But God actually is the one who causes Job's loss. And we tend to think if I put the right quarter in God's Coke machine, I'll get everything I want. What we don't bargain for is sometimes God wants to purify us and pain is a conduit for that. Sometimes God will prune us and it hurts like a dog. And he says, honey, all you can experience right now is the pain. What you can't see because you're human and you see through the glass dimly is around the corner from this. This pruning is going to cause prolific growth in your life. If we could begin to trust that sometimes, not all the times, I would never say evil is divinely causative. I would never say God caused cancer or car wrecks. That's just foolishness. But sometimes the pain we walk through is directly from God. In the case of Job, he held Job up to that lion lizard we call Satan and says, have you considered my servant, Job?

His uprightness did not cause him to be immune from difficulty. It actually promoted him to difficulty. Because God said, I know this guy. I know the way he's going to walk through this difficult season. It's going to bring me glory. Y'all, it would blow our hard drive if we would begin to change our perspective on pain and go some of what I'm walking through is because God thinks that I can handle it in a way, that eventually I'll bear more fruit and I will bring him glory.

So instead of trying to numb it or get around it or whine about it, I'm just going to walk toward him in the midst of this. Joe loses everything he's accumulated, all of his wealth, all of his servants die, all 10 of his children are killed. And on the heels of that horrific tragedy, his wife says, and you probably remember this, you may as well curse God and die. Now, she's vilified in church culture, has been since the beginning of church culture, but I don't actually take much offense with Mrs. Job, because I can't imagine how I would react if something happened to Missy. And this mama has just lost ten, all ten of her children. And so the fact that she reacts like that, I think, you know, I probably would have cut him. So the fact that all she says is you may as well curse God.

die. I think that makes sense to me for a mama who's in grief and in shock. Job, meanwhile, says nothing. He loses all of this, loses his health, his wealth, loses his family, loses everybody he loves except for his grumpy wife. And his response, we're told at the end of chapter one, is he shaves his head, he tears his robe. Those were signs of extreme grief in this era. And then it says he worships. Isn't that beautiful, y'all? Because usually we think to be in grief or to be sad or to be even depressed that that is the opposite end of the spectrum of worship. And God says, no.

To have a broken heart and raised hands, that's actually the same continuum. As a matter of fact, I think it's a deeper, more sacrificial worship to worship like Habakkuk and Job. though it feels like you are slaying me yet, will I still raise my hands and sing, hallelujah. Because even though I don't understand while I'm walking through this, I trust that you're a good God and I trust that ultimately, ultimately, all of this is for my good and for your glory. Isaiah calls that blind faith. Sometimes it's actually just put one foot in front of the other. Do you know that perky is not listed as a spiritual gift? You know, I used to think it was. I used to think there was this continuum, and there were emotions that were approved by God, and those were like the happy, perky emotions. No, I'm doing great. Victory, victory. And then the emotions over here that were, man, it's tough. I know Jesus will bring the victory. I'm victory-minded, but man, today I am in the pit. I'd be like, you know what, you're just a pro-zac Christian, that's inappropriate.

to see that those two, God oftentimes brings them together and says, if you praise me when everything is going great, well, good. That's kind of like Luke 6. If you love those who love you until you look skinny in those jeans, what good is it to you? But if you praise me and if you love people who don't love you well, that actually is more pure and undefiled worship. And that's where Job is.

He's being honest about his stuff. He's saying, this hurts. I don't like this. I didn't pray for this. I didn't dream of this. But I trust you. I'm still going to worship you. He's being honest.

He's bringing all of him to all of God. He's not editing and just bringing the part of him that's perky to God. He's bringing all of him to all of God. I appreciated Lauren's testimony. She said, I thought if I transferred school. schools, maybe a new peer group would make me feel better. Y'all, some of us feel the same way, even though we're older than Lauren. If only I had better friends, if only I had a promotion, if only I got the proposal I've been

hanging on for. Some of us are always thinking, if I got that greener grass, then I'd be hopeful. And I'm like, man, we need a bigger hero, don't we? Because the hero we've got to hold on for is Jesus, our Redeemer King Jesus, who eclipses these momentary things we think will give us hope and healing. He's so much bigger than a peer group. He's so much better than a promotion or proposal. He is what our souls long for most. And even though Job was suffering well, he, like us, sees through the glass,

so he didn't always get it. God says he didn't sin in his grief. And y'all, it's important for us to know that grief is not sin. Where we go in our grief is where we get in trouble. And I'm going to say one thing, and I hope I don't get eggs thrown at me for this. But healthy grief, godly grief, does not demand an audience or applause. Healthy grief, godly grief does not demand an audience. audience or applause. We've gotten so used to airing our aches and pains on social media.

And if we don't get enough likes or enough follows, we think, nobody's being nice to me. And I'm like, God never intended us to bring all of ourselves to all of humanity. He's like, no, you bring all of you to all of me. I'm the one who has healing. I'm the one who has healing. If you feel compelled when you ache to run to social media before you run to your savior, y'all, that's not real grief. That's actually self-indulgent whining. We have got to run to Jesus first. Jesus is our hope. Now before I totally grind your toe into the carpeting, I want to encourage those of you who feel like you're stuck in a whiny season that Job epitomizes that too. Job chapter 19, verse 13, this is the nadir. This is the very bottom of his experience. He is at the

deepest level of the pit. And here's what he says. It's not perky at all. Interesting that God says he didn't sin here, because I want you to listen to how depressed he is. He has put my brothers far from me and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me. This is Job chapter 19, verse 13, verse 14, my relatives have failed me, my close friends have forgotten me, the guest in my house, and my maid servants count me as a stranger. I've become a foreigner in their eyes. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer. I must plead with him with my mouth for mercy. My breath is strange to my wife. That's not a great translation. Better translation is King James. My breath is offensive to my wife. In other words, they are not sleeping the same bed. He's on the couch. They are

not getting jiggie with it, even though they are married. Even young children despise me. When I rise, they talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me and those whom I loved have turned against me. I've got nothing. No friends, no home, no reputation. I've got nothing. I feel absolutely despondent. Have you ever been there? I've ever been in the place that you think I can put on a happy face at church, but man, I hate what I'm facing when I go home. This is a little more than I bargained for. I started the adoption process when I was in my late 40s and I got matched initially with a precious young woman who was a prostitute and a hardcore crack addict. I told the adoption agent, I don't want a kid that has the chance, a good chance at a mom

and a dad. I think that's best case scenario. So I would much rather be considered for a child who doesn't have much of a shot, because in my opinion, as a single woman, best case scenario for a kid is to have a mama and a daddy. And I said, so if there's a child who doesn't look they have a great shot for that, then I think maybe a fluffy single woman in Tennessee would be a better option than death in a third world orphanage or in a precarious situation in the States. And I got matched with this precious kid, hardcore crack addict. I spent seven months in relationship with her. I spent Christmas that year in the crack house because when I was with her, she used a lot less. And I just fell in love with this little mama because she was

desperate. 23 years old. Don't have time to tell you her backstory, but I will tell you if I had her backstory, I would be very tempted to abuse narcotics as well, to numb the pain of what she had walked through. I'm almost 55, and I can tell y'all, I have yet to meet a woman who has struggled with abuse or solicitation who asked for a prostitute Barbie when she was five or six years old. We are so quick in the church to turn our noses down at people who use different things to medicate their pain instead of recognizing, you know what I'm not condoning the sin, but Lord have mercy. What led them to medicate that way? Let me pray for that. Let me see the wounded little girl and the wounded little boy that drove them to that trajectory. I spent seven months with

this kid, desperately hoped she would come to know Jesus, get in recovery. We formed a really close relationship. I told all my friends in Nashville, don't throw me any baby showers. I said, this is such a precarious adoption. The doctors are saying it will be an absolute miracle if she carries the baby to term, if the baby even survives, because she just couldn't let go of the crack. And I said, so don't give me any gifts. Just pray. Just pray that God's will be done. That first of all, Marie will be rescued from the life that she's just. and sneered in and pray for the baby's health, but don't give me any baby gifts. Well, a week before Marie was going to be induced, I got a phone call from the adoption agency, and she said, Lisa, it is great news. She said, every tea has been crossed, every I has been dotted, you're going to bring Anna Price home. Marie had let me name her baby girl,

and I named her Anna after Anna in Luke chapter two. You remember she was the prophetess who waited and waited and waited, held on to her hope for a real hero in Jesus. And so I so admire Anna. And then my little brother's middle name is Price. And our family's a little Jerry Springer-ish. And so I thought that'll kind of redeem our family's lineage. And so I named your Anna Price. The adoption agent said, you're going to get to bring Anna Price home. And I was like, you are kidding me. And she said, no. She said, actually, all the entities involved have agreed that you are the only one legally allowed to bring her home from the hospital. So when I got off the phone with adoption agent, I immediately called my mom and I said, Mama, you're going to have a granddaughter

because my sister has two boys, my little brother has a son, and that would be, Anna Price was going to be my mom's first granddaughter. And so we cried on the phone. We were both so excited, so excited at what God had redeemed in the story. Got a phone with my mom called two or three other friends. We all cried because guys, that's what women do when we're happy. Even when you have not one cell of estrogen left in your body, we just, it still is kind of the thing we do when we're happy. And so, anyway, we all cried on the phone. And then when I got off the third phone call, there was a knock at the door. I go to the door. It's the UPS guy. And he hands me this big box. And I saw on the return address. It was from a friend of mine in Atlanta.

And I opened it up, and her note basically said, I know you told us not to give you any baby gifts. But she said, Lisa, I know like I know my name, that you're going to bring Anna Price home. And I also know that the generational sin in her family is going to end with you. And that's why I'm giving you this gift, because I believe there's going to be purity infused in the rest of her life. And she gave me a miniature white fur coat. Yeah, her husband has done really well. and I sat back down on the couch and I cried harder because nobody's ever given me a fur coat.

And then a few minutes later, the phone rings again and I saw from caller ID it was the adoption agent and I thought, oh, I've just forgotten to send in some paperwork. I probably need to sign something and scan it and send it to her. But as soon as I heard her voice, I knew it wasn't good news. And I'm not at liberty to tell y'all what happened, the details of what happened, but the bottom line is the bottom fell out of our adoption. And we lost that little mama. She did not go in recovery, and I lost Anna Price. And I don't have words to wrap

around what I felt in that moment. I felt like my heart had been just cut outside of my chest. And I don't know how long I sat there crying. They weren't happy tears anymore before the phone rang again. A song caller idea was my mom. And I thought, oh, good. night. How I'm going to tell my mama that she's not going to have a granddaughter after all? I don't have the emotional wherewithal to even talk, much less explain what just happened. And then I thought, you know, if I don't answer the phone, my mama's just going to keep calling. I don't know if y'all's mama is like that. And then I thought, you know, if I don't answer after about 30 minutes, she's going to call 911. And so I thought I need to go ahead and deal with this. And I thought, I'm just

going to keep it short. And I said, hey, Mama, and she didn't even notice that my voice was broken. She just real quickly said, baby, I'm so sorry to call you with bad news on such a celebratory day, but I'm scared. And I need you to pray. She said, I just got off the phone with my doctor. And she said, what we thought was an ongoing bladder infection is actually appendiceal cancer. And she said, honey, the cancer is metastasized to at least three of my major organ. and my prognosis isn't good and I'm scared and I need you to pray for me. So I just prayed on the phone with my mom at that point I didn't tell her about losing Anna Price.

Got off the phone and just a few minutes after that it rang again. I saw it as my daddy. My mom and my dad divorced when I was five years old, long acrimonious divorce. So my dad didn't know anything about my mama and my dad. I hadn't told him that morning about Anna Price. And I thought, oh, goodness gracious. I just can't deal with my daddy right now. But he's kind of like my mama in that he would just keep calling.

And I thought, I'm just going to try to keep it short. And I said, hey, dad. And he said, honey, I need your help. He said, I just got home from my surgeon. And he said, they did the scans again. My father battled colon cancer successfully, we thought, five years previously. and he said, honey, the cancer's back. It's in my lungs and it's in my bones and doctor's giving me two months to live. He said, now I'm okay. I'm totally fine. I know exactly where I'm going, but I'm

worried about your sister. So I want you to get on the phone. I want you to explain this to your sister. I told you y'all, we're Jerry Springer. And so I prayed with my dad, got off the phone with my dad, and I just collapsed on the couch. And I don't know how long I sat there. I mean, I just thought, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to peel my heart up off the pavement. And I thought, Lord, you've picked the wrong girl. I mean, I'm not this faithful. You needed to get Chris Kane or Holly Ferdick for this. I mean, I can't, I'm not going to walk this well.

And then I just had kind of this jarring epiphany of, oh, good night. I've got an early flight in the morning because I have to go to Kansas City and speak at a conference for Christian leaders on the faithfulness of God. And I thought, Lord, I'm not sure I can even make it to the plane, much less speak honestly about your faithfulness when I feel like my heart has been cut out of my chest. Y'all, here's who our Jesus is. He is not a fair weather friend.

We don't have a bridegroom who stands in front of the judge and says, for better. That's all, just for better. Like I'm out if worse comes. That's not who our bridegroom is. Jesus says, when your heart is broken, I'm right there. When you feel like you're crushed, I am near to you. When you can't walk, I will carry you. My love for you will not fade and it will not fail. your faith is fickle or frail or broken, I'm right here. I'm not leaving so that you will not be destroyed, Malachi 3-6. His hope, y'all, is immutable. It doesn't change. We change. We wax and Wayne, depending on our circumstances, but he doesn't, his love is dead fast. And that's exactly what Job comes to. It's exactly what I came to the next morning. Do you know, it wasn't even hard to

to stand up and say our God is faithful. Because even the next morning, after I felt like I lost most of my heart, I could look back over my life and go, I've never seen his back. I have never seen God's back. He is a good God. He's a faithful God. He's kind. He has never left my side.

Even when I am in the pit, his presence sustains me. right after Job says, I can't take this anymore. There's this sharp turn. And he says next, what most of us know, because we've heard Nicole Mullins sing it, he says, verse 25, for I know that my Redeemer lives. I'm at the deepest point of the pit, but I know my Redeemer lives. I know he lives and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, after my metabolism has thus been. shot yet in my saggy flesh. That's just a little liberty with the Hebrew. I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself. The psalmist says when I see him face to face, it'll be enough. And y'all what's so interesting about what Job says here about his Redeemer, the word he uses there for Redeemer in Hebrew is Goel. And it's most commonly translated, Kinsman Redeemer. And most of y'all know a kinsman Redeemer could rescue somebody in their family, didn't have to be a close family member,

could be like a 17th cousin. But if you were somewhere in the family circle of a kinsman redeemer, they could rescue you from a minor emergency. Like girls, let's just say you got all fired up about a shoe sale at the rack. And you ran your visa up too high. You could text your kinsman redeemer and say, I am in trouble.

I'm not going to be able to pay the rent next month, but I got some pretty shoes. and your kinsman redeemer could say, I'm going to pay off your debt. And don't go to the rack for a while, but I'm going to pay off your debt. So they could rescue you from a minor emergency. Or if you had a major emergency, let's say you're facing incarceration. Your kinsman redeemer could stand between you and the judge and plead for leniency, or they could even take your incarceration, your punishment upon themselves.

You all know Ruth's story. You know Boaz, her kinsman redeemer redeemed her from, a life of poverty and shame as a widow, as a childless widow. And then they, after they got married, had a son named Obed, 39 generations later. Jesus, the ultimate kinsman Redeemer, was born through their lineage. So Job says, my kinsman redeemer, my go well is coming for me. So that's normal, relatively speaking, actually, in that era of history. They didn't even use the word redeemer, but God makes the veil thin in pain, doesn't he?

If we'll look up, you'll actually see him more clearly when you ache than you do when everything's hunky-dory. He says, my kinsma redeemer is coming. What's curious about this is in chapter 16, he said, God is my accuser. God Goel is the one who has brought this calamity upon me. So it's curious that he would say, God is both the one who has punished me and the one who is going to redeem me, unless, unless Job saw what we know now because of where we are in redemptive history, unless Job saw one is coming who is going to shrug into the orange jumpsuit meant for me. So God, my judge, does wear the black robe of perfect, holy, divine judge. And he has brought this upon me in his sovereignty.

But Jesus is coming. and he's going to redeem me. And when I see him face to faith, it's going to be enough. My Redeemer is coming. Y'all, it's amazing what Job sees. Do you know, he uses messianic terminology in this book that's a thousand years before the birth of Christ. He uses messianic terminology that's used nowhere else in that period of literature. He sees Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. That's his posture. If we would get that in the pits, if we look up, we will see Jesus more clearly than ever before. We would not fear pain. Now, I'm not saying we'd all be massive, masochist or sadist, but we would go, you know what,

this too. Somehow this too will be for my good and for his glory. So I'm going to walk it. I'm not going to try to get around it. I'm not going to hide. I'm not going to numb it. I'm just going to walk it because he thinks I'm strong enough for this. and I'm so grateful my God has such a high, high expectation of me. So I'm going to walk it as well as I can. I'm going to be honest about it. I'm going to bring all of me to all of him, but I'm going to be honest about it. Two weeks after I lost Anna Price, I was in a waiting room, hospital waiting room,

in Orlando, Florida, waiting to hear from the surgeon who's operating on my mama. And after four and a half hours, he called and he said, Lisa, I've got mostly good news. He said most of the cancer was encapsulated. He said, we weren't able to get all of it, but we got most of it. He said, here's the deal. Your mama will die, but she's going to die of old age. She's not going to die from the cancer. He said, so I've got a good report.

Well, two days later, that same surgeon called, and he said, Lisa, the cancer was successful, but your mother is doing poorly. He said, your mother's numbers continue to plummet. He said, I think she was so weak coming into the surgery that her body just can't handle. such a difficult surgery. And he said, if her numbers don't turn around in the next 24 hours, we're going to lose your mother. He said, I know you to be a woman of faith, and so I would just encourage you to pray. Well, my sister and I were keeping visual over my mama's bed. She was still in ICU, had barely been conscious since she had come out of surgery. And that afternoon, my mom

roused just a little bit, and she whispered, I need to see. My sister looked at me, and I looked her and she went. Because our dad, my stepfather, John Angel, who my mom married when I was six years old, he had passed away the year before. And we thought Mama was just so addled from the morphine that she didn't remember

that he had passed away. And so I leaned over mom and I tried to say as gently as I could, my mom, I'm sorry. But Daddy, Daddy passed away. Remember Daddy? Daddy died last year. And she said, my sister and I were just stunned.

my mom and my daddy hadn't spoken really in 40 years. And there's no love loss between my mom and my dad Harper. So I walked outside of her hospital room. I called my daddy. This is the one who had the lung cancer and it was in his bones. And I said, Daddy, you know, mama is out of surgery, but she's not doing well. And he said, okay. And I said, the doctor told us if her numbers don't change in the next day, we're likely to lose her. And I said, Daddy, she's, she's at. asking for you. And he said, all right. He said, give me about an hour and I'll be there. My dad was a little man, about five, seven, 150 pounds, soaking wet. I got my mama's jeans. And he put himself through college, busting Bronx in the rodeo because he was little, but he was

tough. It was like John Wayne Jr. And he comes swaggering down the hospital corridor. And he comes up to my sister and I were staying outside of my mom's room and he goes Lisa Teresa I love you girls but I need some privacy with your mother so you all need to stay out here and he walks in to be with my mama and I was like we're we're going to be on the news um because he's going to go in and put a pillow over her head I was like this is like awful he's in there about 20 minutes he comes out and he says girls I love you your mom's going to be all right I'll be back here same time tomorrow squaggers off. Well, I go busting in her room to make sure she's still breathing. And Mama's sitting up for the first time since before the surgery, she's got color back in her

face. And she said, Girls, your father anointed me with oil. I'm going to be fine. Two days later, they released my mom from the hospital, but that's not the huge miracle. She was with me last week in Nashville, Tennessee. She's 81. She walks six miles a day. That's not the biggest miracle. The biggest miracle is from April of 2012 until February 5th of 2013. My mama and my daddy who had been estranged for 40 years. They talked on the phone every single day or they saw each other. My mama is the very last person who is sitting next to my father's deathbed holding his hand and reading the Bible to my daddy. It was a redemption. it was a healing. It was a miracle that I didn't even have the faith to pray for. And I thought only God.

Only God could bring this kind of glory out of that kind of heart egg. Only God. Two days before my mama went into surgery, I got a phone call. It was from a friend of mine who had just been to Haiti. And she said, Lisa, I know you're still grieving and a price. But I just got back from Haiti. Mamas died of AIDS and there's a little girl that she left behind who's two years old. She has HIV and cholera and tuberculosis. The doctors have given her two months to live. And I just wondered if you would be willing to pray about being her mama. And I said, no, I'm not willing to pray about it.

I've been praying about this for 30 years. You signed me up. Y'all, I did not know. I did not know that. the greatest redemption and restoration of my life would come after a river of tears. And that's what I've come back to tell y'all. I want to bring you a good report. If you are in a difficult season, maybe like young Lauren, you just feel like, I need better friends. I've got some miserable comforters like Job. Maybe you long for your marriage to be as close as it once was. Maybe you just

need a job. I want to encourage you to stay the course. Your Redeemer has already come for you. Your Redeemer will restore what seems irreparably broken. Your Redeemerable is enough. Let's stand and worship the fact that God never leaves us. He will never fail us. His presence is enough. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. If you did, there are just a couple things I'd love for you to do. Number one, subscribe to our show. That way, the most recent episode will always be in your feed waiting for you ready when you are. And secondly, if this ministry has impacted you and you'd like to help us continue to reach others, you can click the link in the description and you can give now. And I'll see you next time

on the Elevation Podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.